Reading Response #5: mobile journalism

The Briggs chapter discusses the role of mobile devices in producing journalism. Also read Frank Rose, How the Smartphone Ushered In a Golden Age of Journalism, which is about mobile devices as tools for consuming journalism. Do you consume news differently on mobile devices versus other platforms? If so, why is it different? Respond in the comments section of this post by the beginning of our next class, Monday, March 9.

Also read Cheri Lucas Rowlands, Come Together: A Guide for Group Blogs. You don’t have to include this in your response this week; this is just to get your wheels turning about our future group blogs.

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14 thoughts on “Reading Response #5: mobile journalism”

“The audience is going mobile, so journalism should too.” This quote from the Briggs chapter is absolutely true. Mobile devices are at audiences’ fingertips 24/7, so what better way to reach people? Personally, I am more likely to consume news through my cell phone because it is the most convenient media channel. Picking up a newspaper or magazine requires searching through each page trying to find a story you are interested in. Mobile phones allow us to type in a topic or headline and to pick and choose which article to read online. The modern day demands convenience. I read more news articles because of mobile convenience. As mentioned in HOW THE SMARTPHONE USHERED IN A GOLDEN AGE OF JOURNALISM by Frank Rose, mobile devices give us access to social media. Without even looking for a specific article or news topic, social media brings the news to social media users. Twitter and Facebook pages for media companies allow us to chose the type of news we consume (such as Elite Daily for blog posts about personal stories we can relate to, People for all sorts of news, and Huffington Post for celebrity and entertainment news). By selecting our sources, we are able to customize the types of stories brought to our attention.

I find it very interesting that in chapter 5, Briggs says that “Just a few years ago, a reporter who wanted to be prepared for anything would have had to cram a backpack with a laptop computer, wireless internet card, DSLR camera, video camera, audio recorder, AND a mobile phone. The innovation in technology has lead to the fact that now we only need a mobile phone to do all of the above – mobile phones have simplified, and made journalism a little easier, if you will. And like Briggs mentioned, they especially come in handy when you want to cover an event because it’s the perfect capturing tool with photo, video, and audio recording features. In Frank Rose’s piece, much of it rang true. This particularly stood out to me: “…folding those big, inky broadsheets into neat little rectangles—roughly the same size, in fact, as an iPad. It’s as if they were trying to turn the newspaper into a mobile device.” People want things that are portable, accessible, and won’t cause a disturbance to those around them. Mobile journalism does that. I personally only consume news from my mobile phone apps, be it twitter, NYT, or even FB if it’s breaking news. I feel like it’s different on mobile phones vs. physical formats because you have your phone on you anyway, and it’s always there, everything is a click away. But a newspaper isn’t something you always have and it can be annoying to carry that ruffling paper around. Times are changing, and the internet, as well as our mobile phones, are definitely reshaping Journalism.

when im reading the news on my mobile device, I basically just reading anything that catches my attention the most. Any “bold face writing” or the “MOST graphic pictures” will catch my attention. When I’m on my laptop, I feel like I can open multiple tabs of pages and read different type of news going on. Like when I sign on aol mail I see random news form “daylight savings” “to Kim k’s new blonde hair” to “another robbery in the community”. On Tv, I feel like I get as much information as I can. It’s the most effortless I would say. I literally sit back and flick through whatever channel I want to get whatever kind of news that I want. When it comes to either fashion, murder, local news, celebrity news I can flick through the channels. When Brigg’s mentioned in his reading that our mobile devices has changed the way we live and think about info would also change the way we do journalism, he was correct. In order to connect with us world wide we must keep up with how the way our technology is changing. Since journalism is the activity or profession of writing for newspapers or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television, they MUST get that information as quick and local as they can. So it wouldn’t be a surprise that journalists turn to news from their phones.

I don’t think that I consume the news on mobile devices differently than other platforms. When I want to see what is going on in the news, I go to my Yahoo app and go to the news section, when I see an article I like I’ll read it, and if it really grabs my attention I would switch to my laptop if I want to learn more about that news topic. There are probably others who do the same thing as me. I think that using mobile devices can be seen as a new window for journalism, it makes it easier for journalists like Nicola Dowling to get a breaking news story out there fast without waiting for the evening news to show it on television.

With the mobility of information via smartphones and other hand-held devices, news is accessible at any time from nearly any location. Readers no longer designate time to sit down with a newspaper, but rather peruse it intermittently between other mobile activities. Notifications allow for immediate updates, as Briggs describes in Chapter 5.

“Today’s news audience expects to see and hear that story now, as it’s happening –not just tomorrow morning,” Briggs writes.

Mobile news is also much more diverse in content. Because mobile devices allow updates to be received from multiple different sources in rapid time, readers are no longer restricted to one subject area or type of writing as would be seen in checking one news source. In Frank Rose’s article he notes this, specifically referencing the NYT Now app, which provides users with updates from multiple other sources it formerly had not been affiliated with in order to add versatility to its reader capabilities.

“[B]ased on what’s happening already, we have good reason to expect that listicles and their ilk will share the screen with great writing, investigative journalism, and deep-media storytelling. Mobile actually enables those efforts as it puts us face-to-face with the endlessly onrushing stream of events that journalists exist to capture,” Rose writes.

For me, it is difficult to separate news via mobile device from news via social media. It is far easier through these tools to pick and choose what you desire to read further. I found it interesting that Rose clarified that mobile news was not necessarily shorter news, and that this was a common misconception. According to his article, mobile newsreaders are not as passive as assumed, and are able to keep their attention much longer than many print readers. Much of this, I believe, can be attributed to the ability of its readers to access it at any time, as they can now read when is most convenient, and stop and return to stories at their leisure.

Chapter 5 of Briggs book describes the many ways mobile journalism has effected journalism in general. It has made big changes, but all for the better. That being said, consuming news on mobile devices is way different that newspapers. Visually, the layout and pictures are different. On a newspaper, pictures aren’t seen in the greatest quality but on a phone or iPad it is. Technology allows images to be seen better since it isn’t wasting ink; all they have to do is make sure the picture fits on the website and if it’s visible. Another reason why receiving news on mobile devices is different because the audience is able to see videos. Videos are becoming very popular with news stories, whether it is a small explanation, interview, or a live view of the story. Stories can also be written longer on the website rather than the newspapers since it doesn’t have a character limit. This allows the readers who want to read about a particular event more in depth, rather than only the important parts of the story.

News on mobile devices also allows the audience to know anything in an instant. Instead of waiting until the next morning or the 11pm news program, one can now just check on their phones and use twitter or Facebook to be up-to-date with events. Mobile devices allows the news to be reached out to their audience more faster. Like Briggs discussed, some journalist use “Live Blogging”, which consists of a twitter user constantly updating on information being released from a story. This is a huge benefit because it allows others who can be affected by this event to know quicker rather than wait until a broadcast is made.

I personally feel that news in mobile devices is such a benefit in society now because no matter where I go, I can be informed of all current news. The people I am friends with on Facebook are a big source to my news; they will post about news that they relate to somehow and then it becomes a trend where everyone posts. For example, when Robert Williams had passed, I found out about it through Facebook because everyone was post links and stories about it. Without news being distributed through mobile devices, it would take a while to have actual confirmation about current events.

Frank Rose mentioned in his post, “Like Twitter, mobile has long been underestimated: People assume that because the screen is small, the content should bet too. That’s turning out to be both simplistic and wrong.” I have to agree with Frank Rose because mobile devices because I am one of many who consumes news differently on mobile devices versus other platforms. The majority of the information I receive is off of my phone because I take my phone everywhere with me (for safety reasons) and it’s simply very convenient. The apps that I use on my phone that provide me with the most information is Twitter because each tweet cannot extend past 140 characters, making it short and straight to the point. It’s helpful because if I’m at school and cannot watch my favorite news channel, the journalists I follow provide me with what is happening as soon as it happens with not so many words. Most tweets that share news also have a link included within the tweet so that if I want to know more information about the tweet, I can just click on the link. However, I am not a person who is constantly on my phone and Twitter and other apps are not the primary ways I receive news. I personally like to watch it on TV to see what is happening and watch the discussion between anchors about the news. Nevertheless, mobile devices are becoming more and more popular in the world of journalism and they are going to start to become a necessity for most people to get their news.

Mobile devices are certainly consuming Journalism just as they are consuming pretty much every aspect of our day to day lives. Everything can be accessed from our mobile devices whether it be the weather, any news outlet we might use, maps, social media, the internet, really anything you want- “there’s an app for that.” But focusing on journalism, I think that despite some struggles journalism has found a place in the online world. I think that the consumption of online journalism makes it more accessible to everyone and its easier to just be on the go and be able to check your phone and see whats going on. For me personally I get a lot of news from my phone. For instance I’ll be checking bleacher report for my sports news and yahoo for news on whats going on in the world and such, and I’ll usually do that on my phone. I do still get magazines sent to my house though and I’ll get the newspaper every now and then so I still get my news in other ways, but I think i’ve transitioned more to digital news.

I liked this quote from Rose in which he says “Mobile actually enables those efforts as it puts us face-to-face with the endlessly onrushing stream of events that journalists exist to capture—a stream you can now dip into at will, even as you hold it in your hand on the subway.”

I definitely agree with this statement, I think that mobile is not only more accessible but its almost instantaneous which is what people want these days. The second something major happens there is already someone writing it up and putting it somewhere so that it can get sent to people in a matter of seconds. Mobile screens might be small but they truly contain so much information and so much content, its a never ending stream of information!

“It’s only natural that a device that has changed the way we live and think about information would also change the way we do journalism,” said Briggs in Chapter 5. And he’s right. We use our smartphones for everything nowadays, so it only makes sense that this widespread phenomena would have major implications for the journalism industry. While reading Frank Rose’s article, it became obvious to me that journalism isn’t a “dying form.” It’s simply an ever-changing one. Journalism has followed the innovations of today, which has only made a it stronger. Mobile reporting is proving its worth, because when today’s society demands a constant flow of information, mobile reporting journalists are making it happen.

Briggs chapter on going mobile and Frank Rose’s article go hand in hand very well. Mobile devices have changed our lives almost entirely and it isn’t necessarily changing the amount of content exposure. In Rose’s article the discussion goes on about how some would think that if we’re reading online articles that maybe we aren’t reading as much as we would have reading a newspaper-which I do agree is wrong. I personally am somebody who reads newspapers and mobile devices. I think it also goes with what is most convenient for me at the time. A newspaper seems very appropriate at home, versus “hitting our neighbors face with it on the subway.” Briggs’ chapter mentions having the world in the palm of our hands which is true. When I’m waiting to meet up with a friend, I find myself scrolling through The New York Times’ twitter to see what articles interest me. Once I find an article I can click the link to read more, and I am evidently entertained for a good 10-15 minutes. If there is a word I don’t understand or name I am unaware of, I easily open a tab on my internet app and look it up. Mobile devices just are easily accessible and there’s nothing else to it. I think our generation gaps gives us much different outlooks on mobile devices and their capability but how you are accustomed to the device will shape how you truly use it. I don’t agree completely using my phone for my access to news but if I can’t get my hands on a newspaper or magazine, it’s just what really is convenient and something I should take advantage of. Our devices most importantly helps us share information with other users in the easiest way possible, promote our reporting and find more information for stories. Mobile devices may be the best thing ever for journalism whether someone was to agree or disagree.

I do consume news differently on mobile devices then I do on other platforms. When I read news on my phone I usually just skim through the headlines because I usually don’t have too much time to read entire stories when I’m using my phone. Also creating multiple tabs on the phone doesn’t work as well as on other devices. When I read news on my laptop it’s easy to open multiple stories in new tabs while staying on the front page continuously adding more tabs, while on my phone every time I open a new tab it takes my away from the front page and leads me to the new tab, that can be annoying and time consuming. Unless it is a special news app for my phone, like Yahoo! News, then its easier to read more of the story without it taking to much time to load every new story. I also find just skimming the headlines of different newspapers on my phone is a great way to know what to look for when I have the time to read news on another device, often my laptop. Microbloggs like twitter is also a great thing to get a better understanding of what’s going on in the news that day, and finding out which stories I want to read more about. So I think I agree with Briggs that Twitter is the standard for microbloggs on mobile devices, but I think Twitter has more competition now then ever before.
Frank Rose gives some statistics about how much time is spent reading new on mobile devices, saying that reading on those devices isn’t just skimming the news, I don’t recognize myself to much with that. I normally just skim, but on several different newspaper sites and apps, unless I’m on sort of transportation for longer then 30 minutes or if there is something that I just have to read more about straight away.

I feel like smart phones are definitely affecting the way people consume journalism solely over the reason that society wants to read/see an article that is short, easy, and straight to the point. Most people reading news on their mobile devices are multitasking or commuting to a destination, that they don’t have the time to sit down and read an in-depth article on the latest news. And because of that our society has become lazy and doesn’t want to read a lengthy article even when they do have any sort of downtime. I think its what our generation has become and what journalism needs to accustom to.

I found Chapter 5 of Brigg’s interesting because this is a fairly new phenomenon that has revolutionized the industry. I get almost all of my news on my Iphone throughout the day as I am on the go. I think that is true for most mobile device users my age. It’s the same with social media because a lot of us get our news on social media. I think it’s interesting how Briggs gives an example of being able to report on a story and getting exclusive still pictures of the car because he had his cell phone on him. This is also because of the quality of the cameras that are on our cell phones. They can be used if necessary to capture events of what is happening when you can’t wait for a camera crew or photographer on the scene. In Briggs it says, “But mobile journalism can be an important complement to news reporting, especially in a breaking news situation where time is critical and others arrive on the scene before the processional journalists.” I liked the article “How the Smartphone Ushered in a Golden Age of Journalism,” and how they talk about Buzzfeed, which has emerged for mobile users who have short attention spans and want some sort of news. On a final note the article on the Golden Age says, “People assume that because the screen is small, the content should be too. That’s turning out to be both simplistic and wrong.” I think this is a good explanation of mobile journalism and how people under estimated it.

After reading the Briggs chapter and the assigned reading, I can understand how mobile devices are consuming Journalism. We live in a world where technology is booming and as each generation passes, our old ways become more and more outsourced. What was in last week could easily be out this week. What i’m trying to say is that things are constantly changing in today’s day and age. New phones and new apps are constantly being updated and as people are born into a generation where all they know is technology, odds are they will fall into the same habits and routines as those around them. For me personally, I do check up on news on my phone, but not often. I would much rather turn on the TV and watch the news and hear it for myself, rather than searching on my tiny phone and getting a headache. However, that doesn’t mean I am against it or think it isn’t useful. Sometimes accessing news on my phone is much different than just checking the paper or turning on the TV. using my phone allows me to specifically search things, read what other people are thinking, and I can conveniently do so whenever I want.